Without A Doubt

Without a Doubt

You must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. Mark 11:23

VIRTUALLY ALL CHRISTIANS have had the experience of praying for something and not seeing it come to pass. Yet most Christians can also recall very few times praying for something with every fiber of their being and declaring it to be true with absolute certainty. Is there a connection between these two statements? Probably. Jesus didn’t just talk about faith as an idea and treat it as wishful thinking. Neither did he refer to it generally as a system of thought or belief in God’s existence. He spoke as if faith were a substance, just as Hebrews 11:1 does—a reality, something concrete, a certainty in the spirit about things in the unseen realm. And as Jesus and his disciples stood in front of the withered fig tree that he had cursed the day before, he told them that speaking to their mountains would not accomplish anything unless they had no doubt.

Far too many Christians beat themselves up for not having enough faith when they pray for a person’s healing and that person remains sick, or for being ineffective in ministry though they have worked and believed the best they could. After all, this same Jesus who spoke about the importance of having no doubt was quite generous earlier with a man who said he believed but then asked Jesus to help his unbelief (Mark 9:24). Still, there is power in living, speaking, and acting with absolute certainty in what we believe and what God is doing in the spiritual realm. Prayers are answered. Mountains move. God loves that kind of confidence and has wired his world and his people to move forward in it. Creation is rigged in favor of faith.

Learn to discern the difference between presumption and faith. When you know you’re walking in faith, do it all the way. Root out those little voices of unbelief, those hints of doubt that question whether you really know your God. Pray for faith to believe, and then pray for the thing you’re believing for. You were created to move mountains—and circumstances and people—by the certainty in your spirit.

Turn from your doubts with horror, as you would from blasphemy.